UK Travel Blog

When you travel the London underground, occasionally you’ll catch a glimpse of stations that don’t seem to appear on the map. You’re probably not imagining it as there over 50 ghostly quiet abandoned stations on the London Underground network, many of which can still be seen as you fly by.

Aldwych Station is one of the most obvious stations as the entrance can still be clearly seen off the Strand and Surrey Street roads. This station is kept in working order as it’s used frequently for any filming requiring a mock underground station. Films such as Patriot Games have used it, and even the Prodigy’s FireStarter video featured the station. The station closed in 1994.

The British Museum station was closed when Holborn Station opened, but it can still clearly be seen as trains pass between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn on the Central Line.

South Kentish Town station on the Northern line closed as early as 1924 and was used like many stations as an air-raid shelter during WWII. Part of the station has now been turned into a sauna accessible from the Kentish Town Road.

Down Street station might be more well known as Vauxhall Cross Station in the James Bond film “Die another day”. Apart from that and a brief use as the cabinet war rooms in 1939, the station has been closed since 1932. Not sure why they didn’t use Aldwych Station for the film.

Kings Cross Station might be an odd one to include, but the original station sits next to the existing one. You can still see it from trains on the Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City lines. The platforms are after the trains surface outside the existing station.

Mark Lane was designed to replace the rather short lived Tower of London Station, but by 1967 the station was far too popular and due to the lack of room to expand it had to be closed, replaced by Tower Hill Station. The only evidence that the station exists is a grill in the pavement by the All Bar One wine bar covering the entrance to the station.

South Acton Station was never really going to succeed as it was located at the end of a branchline just off the Acton Town station. Rumour has it that the trains took about the same amount of time to do the run as it took a kettle to boil…hence it getting the nickname the tea-run.

Uxbridge Road Station disappeared on the September 20th 1940 from passenger use and was originally a a small branch off the line from the Hammersmith & City line just which currently feeds the Kensington (Olympia) station. Virtually nothing remains of this line as buildings now stand where the line once ran, but a little evidence can be seen when travelling south from Latimer Road Station.

Shepherd’s Bush Station still exists in the same way as Kings Cross, but the original station was disused way back in 1914. The next day the new bigger station was created.

Those are only a few of the 50 odd stations that have vanished over the course of the London Underground (Tube), but hopefully give an insight into how things have changed over the years.

Anyone know if it’s at all possible to get official access to some of the ghost stations that still exist, especially the underground ones?

Handy links:
A more complete list of abandoned underground stations
Visitor attractions all around London